


Deep Scars

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Monday Fix-Its [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Canon Divergence - A Scandal in Belgravia, Caring Sherlock Holmes, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Conservative Family Values, Corporal Punishment, Guilt, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt John Watson, John is so small and hurt, John's father is a bad man, Love Confessions (implied), M/M, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Previous partners, Retrospective, soul searching, teenagers kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 07:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17658743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: During his conversation with Irene Adler, John decides to actually tell her the truth about his feelings for Sherlock, because he wants to say it out loud for once and it's as good a moment as any.But he can't.Still, Sherlock is there to witness it all.Monday Fix-its is a series of one-shots (or two-parters) that take a piece of cannon BBC Sherlock and fix it so that JohnLock would happen. It won't necessarily happen IN the story, but it is the aim or each of these stories. HEA for our boys is the priority.





	Deep Scars

**Author's Note:**

> I was checking SiB recently for a scene I needed (and didn't find it), but this one drew my attention. It had potential.
> 
> If you have a scene that I hadn't covered yet but you'd like to see it "fixed", please let me know (here in the comments, or send me an ask on tumblr). One limitation: No Season 4.
> 
>  
> 
> **TW: Adult beating up a teenager, child psychological abuse**

_"I_ _’m not dead. Let’s have dinner,"_ she said, her fingers hovering over the keyboard as she smirked at John.

"Who... who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but – for the record – if anyone out there still cares, I..." his voice broke. "I feel things for that idiot that..."

Her furrowed brow made him pause.

"I must admit, I am attracted to him," she provided lightly. "Not in a direct, carnal sense, but there is something about that mind that makes one..."

He snorted.

"Lucky you. I have to live day to day with that brain and the whole package that comes with it. And I have to survive without letting the git know that I... I..."

He drew some air with a hiss. The words didn't come. Nothing was coming, no air, no sound, no...

"Ah, doctor Watson. I think you are having a panic attack," she said, her voice fading away as he felt himself swooning.

A pair of strong hands in leather gloves helped him to sit and pushed his head slightly down.

"Breathe, John," his friend urged him. "Pay attention to my breathing and try to synchronise. Slow and deep."

"Ah-ah-I can't..." he wriggled away from the hold.

"What happened? What did you do to him?" Sherlock barked and John heard Irene's heels on the concrete, approaching them slowly.

"We were just talking," she said. "About you."

"That much I've heard," there was some animosity in that voice, but John shivered and Sherlock's focus was on him immediately.

"John, can you hear me?"

He managed to nod minutely.

"Can you try breathing with me?"

He tried. Shivering ensued. But he managed a deep, if shaky, inhale.

"OK, let's take you home then, shall we?"

John tried to think of some way to make it better, to have it all go away, to stop worrying Sherlock, to stop worrying what would happen to Sherlock now that Sherlock knew, because something would happen and it was bad and wrong and he knew it was all his fault...

He managed to get his eyes to stop filling with tears and his breathing was coming with some rattling, but synchronising with Sherlock's inhales became easier and easier. The cabbie was looking at them suspiciously all the way to Baker Street and John could count every glare he sent their way. He _felt_ these looks, he saw the minute movements of the cabbie's head as the man checked on them. Air around him felt charged, as if he was swimming in a pond of weird particles and his vision narrowed to small area just in front of him. The door. Oh. They were out of the cab, somehow.

There was something wrong about the door and he stopped Sherlock before he could open it. A scratch by the lock.

Sherlock drew in a hissing breath and John felt his nerves suddenly calming down as a flood of adrenaline made his fingertips tingle.

"They took Mrs Hudson upstairs," Sherlock murmured and John cast his eyes about, taking in the details with his friend. Cleaning bucket left in a random place in her hall, something on the wall, Sherlock paused and pointed it out, a scuffing... Oh. Sherlock mimicked to their flat and counted - two or three assailants? _Three_.

"Walk in step with me," came a soft command, "then move out of view, I'll go in. Will try to get rid of them, but maybe I can do it without any shooting. If I say 'I insist', come in, because that will mean I need your help."

The Americans were surprisingly acquiescent and left without even noticing John as he crouched behind the door. He listened intently to the exchange between Sherlock and the head thug and came around the door the moment Sherlock sprayed the bald guy in the eyes. In a flash, the man was down, tackled to the ground and was being taped immobile by the two of them, as Mrs Hudson whimpered on the sofa.

The police came and went, Lestrade watching them suspiciously as they reported the injuries sustained by the thug as accidental ("I can attest to that, Greg, it was almost entirely self-inflicted") and Mrs Hudson returned the phone the Americans had been after as John patched her up.

And then John's adrenaline went down, crashing and leaving him shaking like a leaf on their sofa.

"I'm not exactly sure what I can do for you now, John," Sherlock's weight made the cushions move slightly. "I'm... not experienced in this particular aspect of human interaction."

"I'll be fine," he murmured, trying not to provoke hiccoughs of another crying jag. "Just give me some time. I got... That was bad, today. I couldn't..."

Not good. Throat closing again, muscles spasming, crying threatened again.

"I heard you talking to her," Sherlock informed him calmly. "There was something you were going to say, but - at the time I thought she did something to you, but no, it was a plain and clear panic attack. John, is there anything..."

He shook his head.

"It's no use," he whispered. "But you're a grown man, it helps. It helps a lot. They were kids."

"They... who?"

John covered his head with both hands and tried to rein in the shakes.

"Father... father caught me," he provided, softly. "Caught us. He had... He had ideas. How a boy should behave. Kissing a classmate - a _male_ classmate - was... out of the question."

Sherlock made a surprised sound.

"Yeah. He... It was... Thomas. His name was Thomas. His parents didn't care. He didn't matter to them, as long as the school didn't complain about his grades or..."

The air felt thick.

"And you were..."

"Young? Stupid? Trying to understand what I was? I knew I liked girls, but boys also seemed nice. Nobody... Nobody told me there was... an option to have that. So when Thomas said something... I don't remember. About kissing being different. We decided to experiment, to check what it felt like."

Sherlock's hand on his neck, grounding him, keeping him in place.

"So you've experimented with your friend, and I suppose liked it. You continued the relationship and were discovered by your homophobic father. He beat you. One of these parents who think that corporal punishment is the way to ensure their kid grows up straight and proper."

John nodded, but then shook his head.

"He never touched _me_ , except for dragging me around," he whispered. "But he beat up _Thomas_."

A hiss of surprised breath.

"He said he will do it to every filthy faggot that touches me - or any that I'll touch. I was forced to watch it happen and Thomas -- you can guess, he never spoke to me again."

"And... Ah, his parents were neglectful."

"And my father was 'a pillar of the community'," John couldn't stop himself from making airquotes. "The school believed that Thomas must have done something very wrong and that my father had punished him for it, so they weren't going to investigate."

"And you..."

"And I was left, barely touched physically, made responsible for the life and health of any other boy I interacted with. I barely dared to go to rugby practice, but somehow father tolerated _that_. Big groups were fine, but God forbid I'd go anywhere with one or two guys. And then Harry came out to the family at Sunday dinner and Dad..."

"She didn't know about you?"

"She had no idea," he breathed slowly, trying to stave off another wave of panic. "She said she was in love with a girl from her class, that she's a lesbian. She was seventeen and had already learnt the language, while I had no idea that there was even a specific word for that, apart from the slurs my father used. I only guessed at the concept of girls liking girls by the analogy of me and Thomas, but had never heard of anything like that before. It wasn't a topic that would have been widely discussed in our small town."

"And your father wasn't approving of Harriet's..."

"Actually, he seemed very calm at the beginning. But later he tried to beat her - and she run away. So he informed everyone that Harry has moved schools and went to one run by _nuns_ , of all things."

"Better than admitting your daughter prefers her own sex."

"Oh, he made it sound so very high-class. And then he watched me even closer than before. I was asked regularly about my friends - who I sit with on which subject, who I eat lunch with, who is with me on the team, who has a locker next to me, is he taller than me, is he muscled. I gave up rugby because of this and father was angry, because only weaklings and sissies give up a sport. I couldn't tell him that it wasn't rugby I hated, it was his interrogations."

"And so, as you grew up..." Sherlock's voice was choked.

"I learnt to reassure him - and the world - that I'm not gay. This made me safe, this made everyone around me safe. If I was not gay, father wouldn't feel the need to beat up another of my friends, right?"

An arm tightened around his shoulders.

"How did it work out in the army?"

John shrugged.

"I joined almost straight out of uni and never wrote home. Never called. Nobody in the army cared much what you did, as long as you weren't hurting anyone or sleeping within your chain of command. Out there, human contact was human contact. I couldn't. I had offers. But I couldn't. I knew that he wouldn't be able to get to anyone, but I still couldn't. I _wanted_ sometimes, so desperately, but then I would wake up in the middle of the night, thinking I can't, because it would destroy them. Someone would learn that my touch damages people. That touching me is like a sentence."

"But he only ever hit Thomas?"

"Only Thomas. But he liked to talk about how, should I ever be caught alone with any other boy, he would beat the crap out of him. He liked watching me when he recited the names of the boys from my class or team and checking if I'd react. If I flinched at any specific name, he would start talking about finding that boy and beating him black. I had nightmares most nights. Started wearing long sleeves to avoid casual skin contact. Now, in hindsight, I see what he did, but the kid I was then... He was lost."

There was a sigh. And a pair of arms, pulling him in, closer.

"What he did to you, John, was... inexcusable," Sherlock murmured. "He was a monster."

"Is," John corrected softly. "He... he wrote me, recently."

He felt Sherlock's breath catch.

"He expressed his disapproval of my consorting with you - living together! - quite thoroughly. I could barely think for days after I got that letter."

"Oh, John," Sherlock's voice was full of pity. He couldn't stand pity. Pity was for weaklings and...

_Oh._

Warm, large hands on his shoulders, wide torso beneath his own body, long arms pulling him closer. It was what he wanted, wasn't it? Then why couldn't he just relax and _have_ it for once? Just allow himself to _feel_?

_Sherlock's skin beaten black and blue, handprints all over his face._

He flinched.

But Sherlock was still there, still holding him, still warm and breathing, all around him.

_Blood seeping from a cut on Sherlock's cheek, right where he had hit it._

He closed his eyes and tensed, preparing for derision or mockery.

None came.

"That's what you meant when you said that it's different because I'm an adult," Sherlock said in a tone of revelation. "The boy... Thomas was just a boy, and your friends from school were also just kids, so he never really threatened any of your adult friends."

"Because outside of the Army, I never really had any - well, some mates like Mike at the uni. He didn't approve of my studies, but being a doctor sounds proper and upright, so he couldn't really complain... But I made sure he never met anyone I kept company with after I graduated high school."

"So I'm your first adult friend that he really knows anything about?"

John nodded slowly.

"And you... all this time, you were afraid for me?"

He shrugged, unable to find the right words.

"Not... not in particular, not of anything specific happening, but it was always like a curse, hanging over me and anyone I got close to. Unless it was a girlfriend, I couldn't... couldn't really allow myself..."

"I think it's time you stopped being afraid of your father, John," Sherlock's lips pressed a kiss to his temple.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [my tumblr](https://srebrnafh.tumblr.com/).  
> [My writing blog.](https://fanfik.wordpress.com/)  
> [My handmade blog.](https://srebrna.wordpress.com/)
> 
> I am taking a writing course and one of the tasks is to ask my readers to describe my writing style in 3 adjectives. I'd be grateful if you could provide this kind of feedback :)  
> (if you provided it already somewhere else - THANK YOU! :))


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